https://nitter.net/TheEconomist/status/1690713079405768704

  • JuneFall [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The EU and the US, so the other two powerful blocks are having pretty much the same policies. They are ordering farmers what they can and can't do (which includes the obligation to switch crops up to ensure soil health - which is in farmer's best long term interest).

    They do use policy to allow and deny crops and they do finance food security and ensure that parts of plots aren't used.

    In the case of China this news article is part of a series that didn't start long ago in which the arrest of a farmer was shown. That farmer did plant cash crops instead of crops needed to regenerate the soil (you can find in my profile if you seek for it the comment) and this also ensured food safety.

    Funnily the studies about cycling the crops do show that this actually ensures cash crop output mid and long term.

    Which is to say: It isn't us who don't care about the farmer, it is you who doesn't care about the farmer, its prospects, its family, the community or the food security of 1.4 billion people and the other people who trade food with China which is everyone! jokerfication Just joking of course jokerfied

    Plenty of youtube comment channels and alike were reeking of the worst sinophobia, yet both the US and the EU would've done the very same to the same farmer if they did breach laws on their soil (pun intended). I.e. planting crops that aren't allowed. In some regions with high water stress there are even ordinances to switch to different crops to ensure water availability for both commercial and residential use.

    The same is true for pesticides and some water usage. Those are also policies which do "attack freedoms" as you call it. They ensure community survivability, though. In many cases, but also pesticides those regulations and their enactment, typically via the state's monopoly of violence, is essential to secure freedom actually.

    Individual freedom ends were it hurts the freedom of others.

    If you believe that the state is more important than any personal rights to individual self determination

    I believe that keeping agricultural soil intact for the next ten years is more important than personal right to salt your Earth and destroy your soil. I do believe that the individual interest of short term profit making must be regulated, I don't care much what does the regulation bit, but it does have to be effective regulation enforcement. In China the local district office of Agriculture did it. Rightfully so.